Search results for /label/potatoes

…r and curator of the Kenosha Potato Project Curzio Caravati has grown and catalogued more than 300 varieties of potatoes in his collection. Why? Because he is passionate about preserving the genetic diversity of heirloom potatoes and saving varieties from extinction. “Preserving a storehouse of information helps protect against diseases of the future that could possibly wipe out the main strains of potatoes that are grown in America and int…

Wow! The largest tuber weighed in at 4 lbs., 7 oz. Do you grow sweet potatoes? Until this year, my answer would have been “no”. As heat-loving plants with a long growing season, they didn’t seem well-suited to my zone 4 garden. This year, we tried growing sweet potatoes in the Potato Grow Bags. The result has been a sweet success. The largest tuber weighed in at 4 lbs., 7 oz. Total harvest from the two Potato Grow Bags was 19…

After harvesting potatoes from my new bin, I started to think that setup — made from a three-bay compost bin — looked a lot like a coldframe. And the soil inside is better than any of the soil in my regular garden. So once the potatoes had been harvested, I seeded the area with a bunch of different cold-weather crops. Front to back: Bed 1. Spinach, romaine lettuce, cilantro, kale and radicchio Bed 2. An Italian green called Spigarie…

Recently, I harvested my first potatoes of the season. It’s one of my favorite gardening “chores.” As silly as it may sound, to me it’s like a treasure hunt, running my hands through the dark earth in search of jewels. Digging for treasure in the potato bed. Yesterday I harvested my first potatoes of the season. It’s one of my favorite gardening “chores.” As silly as it may sound, to me it’s like a treasure hunt as I run my han…

We recently shared our great results about growing sweet potatoes in the Grow Bags. What about raised beds? What about extra-deep raised beds? We planted three Grow Beds. Each was filled with a blend of 70 percent container mix, 20 percent topsoil and 10 percent compost. To determine if a deeper planting area would yield more tubers, we made one of the beds twice as deep as the other two by stacking two 10-inch beds. Three rooted sweet potato s…

…n’t have the right to know what’s in the food I buy in the store? That’s the goal of the Just Label It campaign, which last month submitted a record-breaking 1.1 million signatures to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) in favor of labeling genetically engineered (GE) foods. And in polls by ABC, MSNBC, NPR, the Washington Post, Consumer Reports and others, consistently more than 90 percent of Americans surveyed favor…

…from the bottom. Here is the almost-emptied three-bay bin. The section on the left is almost ready for planting potatoes. Once I move the leaves from the other two bins, they’ll be ready, too. In late summer, after I’ve harvested the potatoes, I’ll use the area like a big coldframe. The second bin was usually filled with leaves, which I use for mulching and mixing in with the kitchen scraps in the first bin. The third bin usuall…

…etables to donate to local food systems that serve people in need. Last year, we grew and donated 325 pounds of potatoes. Our goal this year: 500 pounds. Milkweed seedlings, growing on a sunny windowsill in March In addition to potatoes, we are planting a few beds with sunflowers — just because they’re so beautiful. We’ve also reserved space for milkweed, which is the sole food of the caterpillars that become monarch butterflies. We…